For 250 years the doors of the Royal Hospital Haslar have been wide open to tend to the sick and wounded.

And today, despite the demands on Service personnel serving in the war in the Gulf, Haslar’s operating theatres are busier than ever and the military hospital is at the forefront of the National Health Service’s recent push for Diagnostic Treatment Centres.

Haslar traces its history to well before October 1753, when the first of the Naval hospitals admitted its inaugural patients.

Indeed, the poor state of health care for sailors had prompted the first proposal for a Naval hospital at Portsmouth – an idea put forward by Dr Daniel Whistler - exactly 100 years before that.

But it was not until September 1744 that a formal submission was accepted by John, Earl of Sandwich, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, proposing that three Naval hospitals at Portsmouth, Chatham and Plymouth be built – or, at the very least, one at Portsmouth that would be capable of receiving 1,500 men at an estimated cost of £38,000.

This decision was prompted by the paucity and poverty of the existing care provision that injured or ill mariners received, a situation where cure or recovery was a remarkable event.

The location of the proposed Royal Naval Hospital was a matter for some debate. Portchester Castle had been previously considered, particularly in light of the benefits its walls offered in containing unruly behaviour and limiting escape by the patients, but the owners of the castle did not wish to sell their property for this purpose.

Haslar Farm, over the creek from Gosport, was eventually bought in 1745 as the best available site for the future hospital.

While the relative isolation of the location – there was no Haslar Bridge at the time – might have seemed a drawback, the majority of Haslar’s patients arrived by rowing boat from the Naval ships in the harbour or at Spithead.

There are those who assert that this situation gave rise to the expression “up the creek”, meaning in a good deal of trouble; if you were taken “up the Creek” to Haslar, then you were likely to be in poor shape.

Patients were transferred from the jetty to the hospital by carts, also known as ‘cradles on wheels’, and in time rails were laid to speed the transfers.

Another advantage for the Admiralty of this lonely spot was the deterrent it might provide for deserters from a Navy which relied heavily on ‘pressed men’.

A specification for the design of the new building laid down that: “[we] would have the hospital to be a strong, durable, plain building consisting of three storeys; the same to form a large quadrangle with a spacious piazza within, the cut fronts to be decent but not expensive”.

Priorities were light, air and cleanliness, and to that end no buildings were to be placed within the quadrangle.

So, in 1746, the foundations were laid for what was to become the largest brick building in Europe at the time.

But even the builders had to be protected from the press gangs by order of the Admiralty –one hapless workman had to be fetched back from his new position on a man o’ war as he still had the hospital cellar keys in his pocket.

The original plan for the quadrangle building featured a fourth side that was never built – and the speculation is that cuts in funding were a problem for the Navy of the 1700s as was the case in later centuries.

When Haslar did receive its first patients, on October 23, 1753, the front block of the hospital was opened early at the urgent behest of the Admiralty - the first 100 admissions had up to that point been accommodated in the builders’ huts around the site.

Seven years later the two other wings of the hospital were completed and opened to the needy patients, and in 1762 the Hospital Church of St Luke was built, replacing the chapel that was to have been included in the fourth side of the building.

But this bright, hopeful start quickly spiralled into the depths of medical decay which beset the country. Medical staff were poorly paid, so doctors supplemented their income by spending increasing amounts of time in private practice in places such as the wealthy Meon Valley.

The scant pay only attracted those nurses who were unemployable elsewhere, and theft, drunkenness and general debauchery were widespread.

The patients themselves, while intent on recovery, had only one long-term goal – to be fit enough to escape the hospital and the attentions of the dreaded press gangs.

The state of the care at Haslar attracted the attention of the top brass, who in 1795 decided that executive command of the establishment would be better in the hands of Naval captains.

Capt William Yeo was the first to take command, in August 1795, and he was followed in 1808 by Capt Charles Craven, in whose time Haslar opened its gates to other than Naval personnel for the first time - including prisoners of war from America and soldiers from the battle of Corunna.

It was not until 1795 that the first bridge was built over Haslar Creek between the hospital and Gosport town – it had taken some 30 years of pleading before the decision was taken in 1791 to approve the plans for the bridge.

In the meantime people had been carried from Gosport to Haslar and back again by means of an industrious and lucrative ferry-boat business.

With the arrival of the bridge a disgruntled ferryman, losing out on his previous income, decided to build a pub at the Gosport end of the new crossing, which apparently earned him a fortune over again.

This led to an ongoing battle of wills between publican and hospital governor, who made increasingly desperate efforts to reduce drunkenness among staff and patients.

The situation was temporarily resolved in 1801 when the bridge was destroyed - for unspecified reasons.

In its place, a new and temporary wooden footbridge was constructed by the Royal Engineers in 1811, but this also proved ill-fated, and collapsed three years later.

In 1835 another road bridge was completed, and this was to be adapted, renovated and rebuilt over the following decades, with passage between town and hospital firmly established.

In 1848 a review of the hospital found that there were more pensioners than seamen being tended to within the grounds; further investigation revealed that many of these were not even Naval pensioners, merely old folk whose uncaring relatives had dumped them on the hospital.

After 75 years the medics once more wrested control of the hospital back to the doctors, with the top position going to a Medical Officer in Charge. It was not until 1916 that the first Surg Rear Admiral took command of the Haslar site.

Many of the hospital’s historic buildings have survived the ravages of time and war – the latter possibly explained by the fact that the Luftwaffe found Haslar’s prominent water tower a handy navigational aid for its bomber pilots who were trying to locate their Portsmouth targets.

Contrary to the original 18th century plans, the open piazza was eventually developed, with the Cross Link being opened in the heart of the hospital in 1984 as medical need over-rode the original artistic vision - the benefits of modernisation, communications and additional facilities forced the new build to accommodate Haslar’s expanding requirements.

For the past year a successful Diagnostic Treatment Centre (DTC) has been operating from within the Royal Hospital, its nine operating theatres have been working to full capacity, and a comprehensive suite of hospital services are on offer at the Gosport site.

The DTC offers a fast-track surgery centre, protecting scheduled routine operations from the abrupt cancellations of pressing emergency priorities.

Haslar continues to provide care to the military and local communities, in partnership with Portsmouth NHS Trust, and the successes of this year have been achieved despite the demands on the military personnel at the hospital, with a number of people deployed to Iraq and Kuwait as part of the war against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

It is thought that the current Commanding Officer, Surg Capt Lionel Jarvis, is the first CO of Haslar to have deployed to a theatre of operations.

Events marking the anniversary have been going on all year, including a special Haslar celebration ale brewed by the local Gosport Oakleaf brewery.

October 23, the actual day of the 250th anniversary of the admission of the first patient, will be the occasion of this year’s celebratory Trafalgar Dinner, with Prince Michael of Kent , Commodore of the Royal Naval Reserve, as guest of honour.

The day before a ceremonial march will take place through the streets of Gosport to mark the anniversary, with colours to be presented to the Mayor of Gosport.

For more information on the events planned, write to Lt Col Phil Ward, RH Haslar 250 Committee, Royal Hospital Haslar, Gosport, Hampshire, PO12 2AA